Re: Match Thread: The Greatest v Preston North End

[Guest]

Piss poor. Embarrassing to be associated with this. 

Steve Bruce can't get sacked fast enough. 20th of May I want him gone no matter what. Truly shit manager.

[Army villain]

Good night, we were very lucky. UTV

[De Kuip]

Frustrating but good to see us pull one back and grabban off the mark.
Hope tomorrow's results aren't too damaging.
Onwards and upwards.

[AstonThriller]

Think we have to be content with that. I mean considering the players we had missing and the fact that Preston have been on a very good run lately, A draw isn't the worst result In the world even though we could fall further behind Cardiff. The fact is we've faced teams who were in 6th and 7th when we played them so they are no mugs. And to play them without Jack and Albert was always gonna be difficult.

Our rivals still have many tough games to come though whilst we only have Wolves, Derby and Cardiff at home left. Leeds too if they get their act together. So we're still In a very decent position. Away from home we've played all of the top ten teams aswell, Plus Leeds. So hopefully the lads can give it one last push in the run-in now.

[smetro]

Preston would be very at home in the premier league. Not in terms of football quality - but the time wasting antics - and constant complaints to the ref are what I don't miss in the PL.

Not a great performance by any means - and we appear to have picked up 2 more significant injuries in Snodgrass and Davis. I think we are going to have to go through one of those hanging on periods. Trouble is nearly all our bright sparks of the season, Adomah, Grealish, Davis, Snodgrass look to be out. They are not only good players, but perhaps with the exception of davis, they are good players in good form.
The season was set to fall apart when Davis come on the scene, though he didn't score many his link up play helped at a crucial time. Then adomah went on that goal scoring run - we were grinding result out - then grealish hit a purple patch of form and we really looked the part.

Hopefully we can grind a few results out until these players are back - or someone else finds a bit of form

[smetro]

Piss poor. Embarrassing to be associated with this. 

Steve Bruce can't get sacked fast enough. 20th of May I want him gone no matter what. Truly shit manager.

All opinions welcome I suppose. But you don't honestly think SB is anywhere near getting sacked do you ?

....and who is going to come in and launch a promotion bid on only nominal funding ?

Sure Bruce isn't perfect - but I happen to think things will get worse when he is moved on .....(and a new bloke building an ethos won't cut it for me

[The Utterer]

Was at the game and we were poor. May be an important point but then so could the 5 we have dropped in the last two games.

Preston looked decent though and much sharper i thought than us.

[achilles]

As soon as that team was announced I knew we were in trouble.

I said it in my first post that Hogan is a waste of time if we don't have a playmaker (i.e. Grealish) and we resort to hoofball, good grief we have seen it enough by now to know it bloody doesn't work!
Onomah in the first half was awful, not a clue, but so were Hourihane and Jedinak to be fair. Bjarnason played on the left wing but drifted inside a bit but at least he got involved.
Hutton by far the MOM of the first half. Preston's goal was I think an own goal by Johnstone as he weakly punched one handed out a corner, the Preston player did an overhead kick and then Johnstone flapped/punched it into his own net. Johnstone may be a good shot stopper but he is absolutely appalling at commanding his area or coming for crosses.

However half time came and everyone was saying the same thing that Bruce would have to change it and absolutely amazingly he did.
I think Snodgrass was injured so Grabban came on and played right wingish, so that was enforced although Elmo could have come on for Snodgrass although I just wonder how fit Elmo actually was.
The other sub was definitely not Bruce (far too positive) as he took off Hourihane (who was rubbish) and played Davis. Good grief, this was radical and so we were playing 4-1-3-2, although Hogan was still playing more central which was stupid as Davis should have played central with Hogan playing off him. Bjarnason swapped with Onomah and came central with Onomah going wide and actually played better, not great just better.
I think this took Preston by surprise as suddenly our hoofball had more players on the end of it. Grabban was a revelation as he actually got stuck into the Preston thugs and used his physicality to great effect. The penalty was a bit soft but if you give a foul for it outside the box then it is a penalty inside and the linesman gave it not the referee (who was utter, utter crap). The Preston players went mad and were moaning even more than the all the moaning upto that point to the referee and the linesman. The goalkeeper was standing on the penalty spot, Preston players wouldn't leave the area and only one Preston player got booked in all that crap. It was a great penalty in the circumstances from Grabban as it must have been five minutes after the decision was given for the penalty to be actually taken.

Conclusion, we got out of jail as we cannot cope with a physical (thugs), moaning and pressurising side as we have absolutely no control in any part of the pitch and just resort to hoofball and then it just becomes the luck of the bounce. If the referee had been stronger then at least one Preston player would have had an early bath but he allowed the Preston players to constantly talk/moan at him without taking action and at one point in the second half he went to talk with Preston's manager on the halfway line, why, isn't that what the fourth official is for. The refereeing standard is appalling and this is just another example.
Anyway unless Bruce can get a cohesive unit that plays together on that pitch then I just don't think muddling along and hoping for the best will work!

PS Terry again looked as though he is beginning to struggle, perhaps it is catching up with him at last.

[AstonThriller]

Preston would be very at home in the premier league. Not in terms of football quality - but the time wasting antics - and constant complaints to the ref are what I don't miss in the PL.

Not a great performance by any means - and we appear to have picked up 2 more significant injuries in Snodgrass and Davis. I think we are going to have to go through one of those hanging on periods. Trouble is nearly all our bright sparks of the season, Adomah, Grealish, Davis, Snodgrass look to be out. They are not only good players, but perhaps with the exception of davis, they are good players in good form.
The season was set to fall apart when Davis come on the scene, though he didn't score many his link up play helped at a crucial time. Then adomah went on that goal scoring run - we were grinding result out - then grealish hit a purple patch of form and we really looked the part.

Hopefully we can grind a few results out until these players are back - or someone else finds a bit of form

Snodgrass only has an "illness", not a real injury. So he should hopefully be fine by Saturday. Also, Adomah's brother has apparently said on twitter that Albert might be back for Saturday too, which would be a major boost.

[Guest]

Piss poor. Embarrassing to be associated with this. 

Steve Bruce can't get sacked fast enough. 20th of May I want him gone no matter what. Truly shit manager.

All opinions welcome I suppose. But you don't honestly think SB is anywhere near getting sacked do you ?

....and who is going to come in and launch a promotion bid on only nominal funding ?

Sure Bruce isn't perfect - but I happen to think things will get worse when he is moved on .....(and a new bloke building an ethos won't cut it for me  

No I don't, thus I wrote 20th of MAY? But I think a ton of managers can come in and do better next season. Bruce is terrible.

[FoxyAV]

The luck of the bounce

Under Bruce this should be Villa's new slogan.

[FoxyAV]

Piss poor. Embarrassing to be associated with this. 

Steve Bruce can't get sacked fast enough. 20th of May I want him gone no matter what. Truly shit manager.

All opinions welcome I suppose. But you don't honestly think SB is anywhere near getting sacked do you ?

....and who is going to come in and launch a promotion bid on only nominal funding ?

Sure Bruce isn't perfect - but I happen to think things will get worse when he is moved on .....(and a new bloke building an ethos won't cut it for me  

No I don't, thus I wrote 20th of MAY? But I think a ton of managers can come in and do better next season. Bruce is terrible.

To add to this I don't think Bruce manages, he copes. Still, we made it as high as second and if we get our players back maybe we'll get there again. With the luck of the bounce!

[Guest]

Injuries aren't even an excuse
 This is about style of play, coaching, hoofing, panicking. We don't belong in the PL

[smetro]

Piss poor. Embarrassing to be associated with this. 

Steve Bruce can't get sacked fast enough. 20th of May I want him gone no matter what. Truly shit manager.

All opinions welcome I suppose. But you don't honestly think SB is anywhere near getting sacked do you ?

....and who is going to come in and launch a promotion bid on only nominal funding ?

Sure Bruce isn't perfect - but I happen to think things will get worse when he is moved on .....(and a new bloke building an ethos won't cut it for me  

No I don't, thus I wrote 20th of MAY? But I think a ton of managers can come in and do better next season. Bruce is terrible.

What you thought Bruce was going to get sacked on May 20 ? - On what basis ?

You say a of ton managers could do better ? - Name a few who would feasibly come and work with free transfers, loans ?

I think our next manager will be Dean Smith - who isn't even doing as well as Bruce - If you want Bruce out fine, I wouldn't object if we brought someone better in, but I really don't see anyone coming.

[Guest]

Not sure what's so hard to understand about May 20th? It means the season is over. It means someone else can come in and do better. I never said he would get sacked. I said "I want him gone". How hard can it be.

Just have to look in our next manager thread. Loads of alternatives there.

I bet Dean Smith, Nathan Jones, Remi Garde, all would be better options than Bruce. Not because they are the second coming, but because their football doesn't consist of one thing - HOOOOOOOF.

The reason we won't get promoted and the reason why other clubs just seem to get on with it, is because they have a manager that understands playing 451 at home in a match you have to win, isn't smart. Or that maybe just maybe it's a good idea to have another tactic than hoofing it.

What we've seen now is that Grealish has run the show without Bruce having had anything to do with it. We have no cohesive unit. We are not a well drilled team. It's all on the manager.

[smetro]

Not sure what's so hard to understand about May 20th? It means the season is over. It means someone else can come in and do better. I never said he would get sacked. I said "I want him gone". How hard can it be.

Just have to look in our next manager thread. Loads of alternatives there.

I bet Dean Smith, Nathan Jones, Remi Garde, all would be better options than Bruce. Not because they are the second coming, but because their football doesn't consist of one thing - HOOOOOOOF.

The reason we won't get promoted and the reason why other clubs just seem to get on with it, is because they have a manager that understands playing 451 at home in a match you have to win, isn't smart. Or that maybe just maybe it's a good idea to have another tactic than hoofing it.

What we've seen now is that Grealish has run the show without Bruce having had anything to do with it. We have no cohesive unit. We are not a well drilled team. It's all on the manager.

No I just couldn't see where the reference to May 20 come from - as we are now almost in March and sit 3rd in the table. If youre list of replacements includes Remi Garde then I hope you never get youre wish - Bruce has just come off winning streak our best for 30 years - yet you would replace him with a guy who won 3 games in his total time here ? - I can't beleive thats a serious suggestion.

Dean Smith would I think be a disaster - Nathan Jones is a highly rated young manager, who is we are taking calculted risks then yes he would be worth a shot - but still risky IMO.

[De Kuip]

Oh it was the pitch's fault!
That's cleared that up then.
SB has explained that the state of the pitch has forced us to play the long ball in the second half of last night's game.
I'm just gonna stop there.........
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steve-bruce-speaks-out-bobbly-14316701

[Guest]

"- Bruce has just come off winning streak our best for 30 years"


We've been a PL team for 28 of those, and we currently have the most expensive team and salary cap this league has seen. And the football under Bruce has largely been very very poor. 

I cant really see your point here. 

AnuwayAnyway I'm giving up on this forum until the mobmobile versversion is fixed. Takes me 15 minutes to write a simple sentence. Laters.

[FoxyAV]

What we've seen now is that Grealish has run the show without Bruce having had anything to do with it. We have no cohesive unit. We are not a well drilled team. It's all on the manager.

I don't think it's all down to Grealish, I think he's just made the centre of the park work. For me there are two ways of looking at it, a cohesive team where everyone works together and a team of many particularly good parts, not necessarily working as a whole but managing ok as individual groups.

The defence for me is Johnstone, Chester and Terry and they work fine. Fullbacks come and go but Hutton now links defence to Adomah on the wing. Add Grealish to that and we have three players who understand each other and make things work. On the right we have Elmo linking up nicely with Snodgrass, and Grealish sometimes comes to play but mostly it's Hourihane, who I don't think fits too well but still comes up with some belters. Centre of midfield Thor has a proper engine, gets stuck in and plays for the shirt which in that position in this league is exactly what we want. He is much more mobile and positive than Whelan, actually has pot shots at goal unlike Jedi and allows Hourihane and Grealish to get on with their job. And then there's Hogan, who seems to operate entirely on his own, with mostly only Grealish feeding him (although all the other attacking players play their part). Since Snodgrass and Adomah mostly cut in and shoot, Hogan is limited to trying to get on the end of hoofballs and rebounds , harassing defenders and taking them away from whoever has the ball, making runs into space no one other than Grealish and Hourihane seem to want to feed and chasing down the goalie every single time. Every time. He doesn't score goals because he has virtually nothing to work with so becomes a terrier, snapping at heals and distracting the opposition from the main threat from midfield.

I reckon it works when everyone's fit because we have decent attacking players and we've muddled through. The weak links (Whelan, Onomah and Jedi in defence) have been weeded out and replaced with players so much better even Bruce has noticed.

It fell apart when Bruce kept the formation and tried to fit people in. All of a sudden at Fulham the left wing is completely neutered, with Hutton, Snodgrass and Thor not clicking, and the right wing was just odd with Tuanzebe not getting forward enough and Elmo floundering around.

To be honest I think 4-4-2 works for us now because we can just hoof it and essentially be as blunt as we want with Grabban and Davis bullying the hell out of the opposition.

[De Kuip]

@FoxyAV Can't argue with any of that mate.

[smetro]

"- Bruce has just come off winning streak our best for 30 years"


We've been a PL team for 28 of those, and we currently have the most expensive team and salary cap this league has seen. And the football under Bruce has largely been very very poor. 

I cant really see your point here. 

AnuwayAnyway I'm giving up on this forum until the mobmobile versversion is fixed. Takes me 15 minutes to write a simple sentence. Laters.

The last time we won 8 on the bounce - we were in the old div 2 1974/5 - Ron Saunders was the manager.

[achilles]

To be honest I think 4-4-2 works for us now because we can just hoof it and essentially be as blunt as we want with Grabban and Davis bullying the hell out of the opposition.

Without Adomah and Grealish, I agree that is the way to go, forget football and let us put pressure on the opposition continually, it won't be pretty but it might be effective.

[smetro]

What we've seen now is that Grealish has run the show without Bruce having had anything to do with it. We have no cohesive unit. We are not a well drilled team. It's all on the manager.

I don't think it's all down to Grealish, I think he's just made the centre of the park work. For me there are two ways of looking at it, a cohesive team where everyone works together and a team of many particularly good parts, not necessarily working as a whole but managing ok as individual groups.

The defence for me is Johnstone, Chester and Terry and they work fine. Fullbacks come and go but Hutton now links defence to Adomah on the wing. Add Grealish to that and we have three players who understand each other and make things work. On the right we have Elmo linking up nicely with Snodgrass, and Grealish sometimes comes to play but mostly it's Hourihane, who I don't think fits too well but still comes up with some belters. Centre of midfield Thor has a proper engine, gets stuck in and plays for the shirt which in that position in this league is exactly what we want. He is much more mobile and positive than Whelan, actually has pot shots at goal unlike Jedi and allows Hourihane and Grealish to get on with their job. And then there's Hogan, who seems to operate entirely on his own, with mostly only Grealish feeding him (although all the other attacking players play their part). Since Snodgrass and Adomah mostly cut in and shoot, Hogan is limited to trying to get on the end of hoofballs and rebounds , harassing defenders and taking them away from whoever has the ball, making runs into space no one other than Grealish and Hourihane seem to want to feed and chasing down the goalie every single time. Every time. He doesn't score goals because he has virtually nothing to work with so becomes a terrier, snapping at heals and distracting the opposition from the main threat from midfield.

I reckon it works when everyone's fit because we have decent attacking players and we've muddled through. The weak links (Whelan, Onomah and Jedi in defence) have been weeded out and replaced with players so much better even Bruce has noticed.

It fell apart when Bruce kept the formation and tried to fit people in. All of a sudden at Fulham the left wing is completely neutered, with Hutton, Snodgrass and Thor not clicking, and the right wing was just odd with Tuanzebe not getting forward enough and Elmo floundering around.

To be honest I think 4-4-2 works for us now because we can just hoof it and essentially be as blunt as we want with Grabban and Davis bullying the hell out of the opposition.

Good post.

I think we would have hit this ropey spot even if Grealish had stayed fit. Our good spell was helped by a blast of form from Hogan - IMO that started to dwindle even in the game v the Villa hating, slum-dwelling, 12-toed, inbred freaks- come 60 minutes Hogan was out of ideas. I didn't expect Hogan to maintain that form, even if Grealish had stayed fit - I was encouraged by Grabbans performance last night and maybe he can provide the spark in a more central role.

2 poor results, no doubt - but still everything to play for IMO.

[Guest]

"- Bruce has just come off winning streak our best for 30 years"


We've been a PL team for 28 of those, and we currently have the most expensive team and salary cap this league has seen. And the football under Bruce has largely been very very poor. 

I cant really see your point here. 

AnuwayAnyway I'm giving up on this forum until the mobmobile versversion is fixed. Takes me 15 minutes to write a simple sentence. Laters.

The last time we won 8 on the bounce - we were in the old div 2 1974/5 - Ron Saunders was the manager.

Exactly. You just made my point.

[Dazzle]

It’s the constant returning to the things that have been proven not to work that send me off all discombobulated. Thor on the left we have seen doesn’t work, isolating Hogan up top and hoofing it to him we also know doesn’t work. We know Onomah is neither a left or attacking midfielder. I think it was Donald Rumsfeld who mentioned something along the lines of “there are things we know that we know, and there are also known unknowns”, or something to that effect.............O’Hare is a known unknown, because he cannot buy a chance no matter his form in our 2nd string, Bruce just won’t put him in, preferring to chuck anyone else into any position and hope it works. And more often than not it’s proven flawed. And yet we repeat. It seems the master plan begins and ends with Jack Grealish.

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